Toilets on locals? Consider it, Bombay high court tells railways

On a day Mamata Banerjee unpacked her bag of goodies for West Bengal, the Bombay high court dealt with a pressing issue familiar to most of the city’s railway commuters. The subject was toilets, or the lack of them.

A division bench of Justice PB Majmudar and Justice Amjad Sayed was hearing a PIL petition filed by advocate MP Vashi, who alleged that none of the platforms at Vile Parle station on the Western Railway (WR) had a toilet or a urinal.

The bench wondered whether the railways could consider constructing toilets in suburban trains. “You should consider an emergency situation. It takes about two hours to travel from Churchgate to Virar and CST to Kalyan. Think about the hardship faced by pregnant women or senior citizens,” said justice Majmudar.

Advocate for railways Suresh Kumar argued that most platforms had toilets/urinals. However, scrutiny of a WR affidavit filed in court to prove that stations like Grant Road, Dadar, Bandra, Khar, Vile Parle and Borivli indeed had toilets revealed that a majority of those were urinals only for men.

The judges asked the railways to take immediate steps to construct toilets on the stations which don’t have them already and file an affidavit giving details of facilities provided to commuters, including free drinking water, by March 14.

The court also directed the BMC to look into the complaint of slum dwellers using the railway tracks to answer nature’s call.